


Not A Stalker

by SiriuslyPadfoot



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-21
Updated: 2013-05-21
Packaged: 2017-12-12 11:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/811334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SiriuslyPadfoot/pseuds/SiriuslyPadfoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is an EMT that Sherlock the intern has taken an interest in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not A Stalker

John liked to think of himself as a fairly tolerant man, but he had to draw the line somewhere. Being dragged down the hospital hallway by a man that he had never met before was about where John drew the line. The man had come storming into the room and demanded that he come meet with his supervisor. Apparently John had been taking too long to put some of his things away because the man had clasped his fingers around his wrist and began pulling hms down the hallway. Perhaps it would have been slightly less annoying if the man wasn’t a good seven inches taller than him and John had to jog to keep up with him. 

“Hey! I can walk myself. Let go of me!” John pulled at his wrist, but the man just held on tighter.

“You can’t even keep up with me pulling you. What makes you think that I’m going to let go and have you stay behind me without my help?” 

John carded his free hand through his hair. “Then why don’t you try walking a little slower?”

The man didn’t respond or slow down. John did manage to work his hand out of his grip eventually though. He found it much easier to keep up once he had full use of both of his arms. John had tried to say a few more words to the man, but he was either ignored or told to shut up. It was more than nerve-wracking, John went through his brain, trying to think of something that he might get in trouble for. If he just needed to go out, his supervisor would have called, or sent someone to get him in a less urgent manner. He’d no idea what he could have possibly done. Maybe it was just a big emergency and there wasn’t any room left in the ambulance. The man stopped and stepped to the side of the door before opening it for John and filing in behind him.

“Thank you, Mr Holmes, though the dramatics weren’t necessary,” she said, noting John’s flushed face and heavy panting, the man grinned at her and stepped out of the room. “Sorry about him, he’s an intern that they stuck here. I didn’t have anything for him to do, so I thought I'd send him to go fetch people when I needed them. Not my best idea apparently.”

John gave an appreciative laugh along with her, even though he didn’t find the situation very funny. He had really thought he was going to lose his job, best not bring that up to her, lest she get suspicious about any non-existent goings-on he had. “Maybe not. Why was it that you needed me, ma’am?”

“Oh, yes. I need you get on the next ambulance out, the last one is full up and we just got another call.”

John sighed. “Fire department can’t handle it?”

“Fire department is dealing with a fire right now. It’s just around the corner. If you don’t want to take the ambulance, you could always pack a kit and run there yourself, I can give you the coordinates.”

“I suppose I’ll get going on that, shall I?” John asked, his supervisor nodded, and he began sprinting down the hallway.

John was perfectly okay with sprinting, so long as he wasn’t being dragged along. As he was thinking over just who the hell Holmes thought he was, John had the fantastic luck of running into the curly-haired man. John grasped the taller man’s shoulders to steady the both of them before running towards the garage again. Holmes didn’t deserve an apology after the ordeal that he had just put John through. He couldn't help the thought in the back of his mind that hoped Holmes would leave soon.

***  
Holmes did not leave. John knew that he wasn’t really going to. Interns tended to stay for at least a full term, but John found himself hoping that Holmes would rub the wrong person the wrong way and have to leave. John had expressed his wishes that Holmes would refrain from holding his hand and running whenever John was needed somewhere, both to him directly and to his supervisor, but Holmes persisted. It was comforting to see that John wasn’t the only person that Holmes felt the need to manhandle. He was just the one that he could manipulate the easiest. John really hated being short.

To cope with said shortness, John had taken up being an outdoorsman when he hit eighteen and realised that he was probably never going to be five and a half feet tall. Trees made everyone feel small, and the muscle he gained from his hikes and bike rides helped him look a bit more intimidating when he had to turn his head up to make eye contact with people. He used to be quite fit. Over the last decade, however, some of the muscle had begun to give way to pudge. John looked at himself in the mirror, poking his soft stomach before pulling his shirt on over his head and going out for a bike ride. John actually owned a car. The only thing he used it for was to drive his bike out to a path to go on. He would probably be a lot better off if he could just get over himself and bike around the city in a fluorescent yellow bike suit (it had been the only one in his size and price range). He looked like a right git driving around in it anyway. 

John plugged in the coordinates of a route he had found into his GPS and began driving. It probably wasn’t a very smart idea to go biking down a new route by himself, but none of his friends had any time to spare. John didn’t really have much time to spare either, he had become an EMT thinking that there wouldn’t be much paperwork to do. The hospital he worked at was a small, private hospital, so even though the pay was more than decent, the amount of patients and calls that they actually received were few. The director didn’t have the heart to hire a full secretarial staff, he just had some of the lower ranked EMTs do it. On the bright side, John had gotten bloody good at filing. 

When he finally got to the path, John untangled the cord to his ear buds and popped them in as he began undoing his bike from the hitch on the boot door. Triple checking his car was locked, John took down the route, breathing in the smell of nature that he missed so much when he was cooped up in London all week. John had wanted to open his own outdoorsy shop for quite some time, but he had to have money to spend before he had money to make. John liked the comfort of his large home too much to sacrifice it for a bike shop. He had been putting small bits of each of his pay checks away though, it was hard, saving up money when he was on his own though. 

He didn’t realise how little attention he was paying to where he was going until he almost ran over a tall man in a coat. Not thinking fast enough to brake, John pulled his bike over to the side without the cliff and looked at the man who was looking down on him with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. It was Holmes.

“Nice to see you out here, Watson,” he greeted cheerfully, as if he hadn’t almost been knocked off a thirty-metre cliff. 

 

“Likewise,” he responded awkwardly as he attempted to untangle his legs from the spokes on his bike tyres. “Are you even old enough to have bought that?” The words came out of John’s mouth before he could stop them. “Oh, God. I’m sorry. It’s just, you look really young, and, sorry. Of course you’re old enough to have bought that,” he looked up to gauge Holmes’ reaction and saw that he was smirking and holding a hand out to him, John graciously took it.

“Perfectly sound deduction. No offense taken.”

He probably wasn’t old enough. “Thanks. I’m sorry again, that was inappropriate. What are you doing out here though, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Smoking. I prefer to smoke outside. I like the effect of nicotine, but I really loathe the smell of tobacco. I can’t stand to have my flat smelling of it, so outside. Whenever I smoke outside in the city, I get looks from people like you who think I’m too young, I’m twenty, by the way, I’m more than old enough, or I get looks from people that are disgusted by the filthy habit that another would-be promising member of England’s youth is partaking in. I come out here to do it instead. I like the scenery, it does get boring though, so I like to mix up where I go.”

“Oh. I’m just out here be – ”

“You’re out here because this is want you really want to do with your life. Saving people isn’t your passion, you just happen to be good at it and it pays better than wasting your days riding down bike paths or sitting behind a counter in a bike shop. You’d like to be doing that, you just don’t have the money. You used to be much firmer, but you’ve gone soft, probably around the time you started med school, you didn’t have as much time as you did in uni and you couldn’t keep up. You’re biking because you want to get back to where you were, which I’m sorry to say won’t happen, you’re at least five years older than you were at that point, and your body has changed. You could do with losing a few pounds though,’ Holmes said in one breath.

John blinked. “That was incredible. How did you do that?”

“Observation.”

“I was hoping that you could go a bit deeper for the laypeople?”

“Ordinary people,” Holmes tsked. “I’ve been at your desk several times, I’ve walked by you when you look forlornly at pictures of other outdoorsmen, or recipes that you could diet on and gain more muscle, and I’ve seen you look up biking routes every Friday. You cut yourself one day and had to roll up your scrubs, you have biker’s legs. There are cuts from where you’ve walked your bike and where the pedal hit you in the back of your leg, not to mention which muscles are prominent, the ones primarily used in biking and walking. Possibly running, but you don’t have a runner’s body. You’re too…bulky and have no form when you try to keep up with me.”

“Did you know I would be here then? If you noticed all that, you must have seen me looking at this route yesterday.”

A pink tinge appeared in Holmes’ cheeks and he took another drag of his cigarette. 

“You did then? You knew I would be here? Why’d you come out here? If you wanted to talk we could have just spoken at the hospital, you don’t have to stalk me. How long have you been waiting here?”

“I didn’t come out here so I could talk to you. I saw you had chosen this route and after researching it a bit myself, I thought it seemed like a lovely place to come out and have a smoke. You mustn’t assume that people follow you around, Watson, it’s a very unhealthy attitude to take.”

“You wouldn’t have blushed if you didn’t come out here to meet me. And, stop calling me Watson, for God’s sake, you’re twenty, you're not a child, and you know my name is John.” 

“John,” Holmes repeated slowly, revelling in the way that it felt on his tongue. “I didn’t blush, it was cold.”

“You’re a terrible liar…,” John trailed off, not knowing Holmes’ first name. 

“Sherlock,” he supplied, “and I’m afraid I’m telling the truth. You must be rubbish at telling when people are and aren’t telling the truth.”

John smiled at him, and Sherlock gave a hint of a smirk back. “I really need to finish my ride though. I’ll see you at work on Monday. If you want to talk, just come talk to me. The stalking is really unnecessary,” he said before winking and riding off. 

John was unloading his bike after he got back home when he heard his mobile buzz from his pocket. Curious as to whom was texting him when he had told his friends he would be gone for another hour (he hadn’t enough energy to go for such a long time), John took it out and started at the screen. The display was a number that he didn’t recognise, and he leaned against his car before opening, not trusting his legs to keep him standing for much longer. It read: THIS IS STALKING. SH

Not wanting to anger a stranger that could possibly have the wrong number, John ignored the text and walked his bike into his house, and jumping at the sight of Holmes sitting on his sofa with a cup of tea.

“What the _hell_ are you doing in my house?” John yelled as he threw his bike down angrily, trying not to wince as the pedal cut his leg. 

“I thought I would show you what stalking really was. Though, I promise you I don’t have malicious intent, most stalkers do. You’re out of tea, by the way. I’ve made some for you, it’s sitting on the counter if you want, drink it before you have a shower, it’ll get cold. I don’t make tea often, especially not for other people. Go drink your tea, John.”

Utterly bewildered at the gall Sherlock had to order him around in his own home, John went into the kitchen and grabbed his cup of tea, taking a reluctant sip. He was happy to discover that it tasted absolutely awful. As quietly as he could, John dumped three quarters of it down the drain before Sherlock ordered him back into the siting room.

“I was drinking my tea. I do need to have a shower though. Do you mind going home so I can do that in private?”

 

Sherlock made a point of rolling his eyes very obviously. “Are you really that self-conscious that you can’t even be in the same house as a stranger? I won’t be watching. I’d quite like to finish my tea.”

“Forgive me if I don’t take the word of a man who’s just broken into my house and made tea,” John said curtly.

“Forgive me if I stay here. You have no reason to doubt me, John. I haven’t lied to you once since we’ve met, you aren’t really my type anyway.”

“I should call the police and have them take you out of here.”

“That’s quite an overreaction, isn’t it? Think of this is a trust building exercise. Pass me the remote.”

John was very aware of the lack of question in Sherlock’s voice. He also saw that the man was not going to move. He would just have to make sure the bathroom door was locked, then again, his house had been locked as well. John opened his mouth to ask how he had gotten in, but thought better of it. It would probably be some exceedingly simple way that would have him tossing and turning in his sleep every night about how easily it would be for someone to break into his house and kill him when he was sleeping. John just handed Sherlock the remote and went upstairs for his shower.

Sherlock was still there when John came back downstairs, fully dressed and towelling off his hair. He hadn’t really expected Sherlock to leave, but he would have liked it if he did. Sherlock was much more willing to leave after John came back. The thought of him stealing something crossed his mind, but Sherlock turned his pockets out when John asked him to. Sherlock turned to leave, but walked over to John and, very gently, brushed their lips together.

“I thought I wasn’t your type.” John breathed, stepping back and more than a little freaked out.

“You aren’t the type I would spy on in the shower. Afternoon,” Sherlock turned around and walked out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a thing that I wrote for one of my classes, we had to create a composite character, and I thought he sounded a bit like John from the class' discussion. It's un-beta'd and wasn't Britpicked (if you'd like to do either of those, please do, I need help). I have no experience writing for this fandom at all, other than one that I've just been working on whenever I've been bored for that past few weeks. Nor do I really know how hospitals work in the UK. Or America. That being said: I have no idea how to write either of them IC, and would really appreciate some pointers on how to make them more realistic, it's really just a rough little thing that I wrote hastily and would like to get some feedback on it.


End file.
